They own a couple of
apartment buildings on third street in
Manhattan where they have their
New York headquarters, and park their
motorcycles outside.
Anytime you walk past there a couple of
big bikers outside, keeping an eye on the block and, of course, their
hogs.
None of these guys are particularly
rich, and most have large amounts of
money - not to mention
sweat equitytied up in their
bikes.
Even in the
winter someone will be out there, usually
burning a
fire in a 55 gallon
drum nearby.
They have a
huge American flag on the front of their headquarters, and some small
speakers mounted outside. It's seems like every time I walked past when I was living in New York there would be a
60's tune playing!
Back in the late
1970's (after
New York almost went
bankrupt in 1975) they were, strangely enough, a stable force in a sea of
chaos.
Lots of crazy
shit happened in
Lower Manhattan at the time, it was almost out and out
anarchy since the
city had almost no money to
enforce the
law.
Their block, however, was an
oasis of
civility - but on their terms. They just didn't let a lot of
weird stuff happen on third street.
Even now
conventional wisdom has it that the crime rate is lower on their block than elsewhere in Lower Manahattan.
I'm
empirical by
education and
profession so I won't commit myself to an
opinion without seeing
hard data, but intuitively I know that the sight of a few
rowdy, 300 pound tattooed
bikers milling around in the street probably makes most
jerks who would
mug or
steal think twice about committing such
crimes in their general proximity.
In early
1980's they
used to throw a hell of a
fourth of July block party outside their headquarters.
They'd close the street off to traffic, hire a
band and have free
food and
booze for everyone who showed up. Later on at night they'd blow off some
fireworks. It was a real good time!
I remember these parties for several things; first, most of the older bikers back then - I mean guys in their 50's or 60's
always had an willowsome 18'ish
babe - and sometimes two - hanging off of them!
The band apparently had been carefully instructed; lot's of 60's music, and almost nothing but
The Stones and similar tunes.
Nothing wrong with that!
And another thing I remember about these parties, and the reason that I stopped going to them. Sometimes people
got fucked up!
All it took was a
flippant comment, a
joke interpreted wrong, maybe a little flirting with a biker babe and they'd
all be on top of someone. I saw it happen twice and it wasn't pretty.
So I stopped going to their parties. A few years later they were blowing up some fireworks and a
kid got killed; almost
decapitated by some schrapnel from the
garbage can they detonated the stuff in.
The City came down on them pretty hard, and they don't have their parties anymore.
Although I had stopped going I still think that it was too
damn bad.
The Hells Angels have their own
ethos and behavioural code that they hold themselves to. One of my old girlfriends, who used to
date one always referred to them as
righteous and I know why.
Another ex-girlfriend's
grandmother who lived on thieir block had trouble walking. As soon as they noticed they would
always help her to the grocery store, and carry her bags home for her.
She passed away about a year later and three of them showed up at the
furneral home that night.
They quietly filed into the small room packed with more conventionally dressed mourners. Most of her surviving relatives were from the
suburbs, and didn't know
what to make of this. Some fumbled at
wallets and purses, thinking they were going to be robbed.
The bikers showed their
respect to the
deceased, and paused long enough to sign the book before silently heading back to their motorcycles parked outside.
But when they left it was in true
Hell's Angel's fashion; throttles wide open, making enough noise to wake the dead.